FIFA 14 review: fifaservice

Apparently following an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" methodology, the FIFA team hasn't introduced any large, game-changing features this year. Heading into the next console generation, this is very much a "tune-up" year in regards to FIFA 14, and for good reason: It's pretty hard to top EA Canada's efforts with the FIFA series in recent years. Each iteration of the soccer sim has gradually tapered off its impactful improvements, with the introduction of physics in FIFA 12 and then First Touch Control in FIFA 13.fifaservice.net Continuing the trend, the biggest on-field changes in FIFA 14 revolve around one of the first things players will notice: The game feels a bit slower. The fact is, the game's actual speed may not be any slower than before, but the continual tweaking of passing and dribbling mechanics has lead to FIFA 14 becoming a much more methodical game than before. Your team's progressions seem to take a little longer since the defense plays your attackers tighter, resulting in passing lanes that are a tad harder to find. The dribbling mechanics added in FIFA 13 have been altered – no longer requiring players to hold the left trigger – and effectively performing some of the fun combinations from last year is more difficult and confusing now. FIFA 14 (6/6/13)guy4game.org The left trigger is now used mostly for protecting the ball from defenders. Holding the trigger causes your player to shield the ball, a strategy that seems especially effective along the wings, yet otherwise ineffective against even a mediocre defense. Still, it causes your player to slow down and wait for teammates to better position themselves to receive a pass, which also happened much slower than I would like. When sprinting, the ball gets knocked a little further away than it did a year ago, lending more vulnerability to faster styles of play, especially when considering tweaks made to First Touch Control. fifa14service.com Introduced last year, First Touch Control causes more unpredictability in the ball's movements, and this year it's more sensitive to less skillful athletes. This causes a much clearer differentiation in how teams play and how players effectively move the ball around the pitch. While I can't necessarily say that Lionel Messi or Christiano Ronaldo feel different from one another, they certainly perform better than a no-name player from some two-star Chilean club. The former two superstars might be able to get away with sprinting around the field a little and still avoid confrontation, but with the majority of teams you'll need to employ a slower, more tactical strategy, as less skilled athletes are more likely to lose control of the ball. gameusd.net If EA Canada's goal is to eradicate the arguably cheap "sprint and through pass" tactic employed by some in the past, they've done an admirable job in doing so with the game's AI alone. In the mid-to-high difficulty levels, the opposition snuffs out passes and makes tackles with ease, and then knocks the ball around your challenges when on the attack. It seemed as if opponents, regardless of their supposed skill level, navigated the field and the openings in my defense much easier than my team could. Additionally, don't bother trying to tackle a CPU-controlled player that is sprinting along the sideline while shielding the ball; it seems downright impossible to get the ball away from them until they're already in the box and approaching the net. The saving grace here is that slide tackling is more viable this year and no longer a guaranteed penalty, thanks in part to a slightly cleaned-up physics engine that doesn't have players falling over one other as much.

UK charts: FIFA 14 on top again, a look back at a momentous year

2013 began with FIFA 13 leading the UK charts, and it ends with FIFA 14 crowned No. 1 for the second week in a row. The smart money is on EA Sports' MVP making it a hat-trick next week; the opening week's charts for each of the last three years has had a FIFA at the top. Rather than focusing on a top ten that's so static you'd think it'd just stuffed its face with Christmas dinner, let's look back through the rear view mirror of statistics at what's been a momentous year of UK charts-ery. We've had two console launches in the space of two weeks, an absolute ton of games, and as ever plenty of Call of FIFA in the charts. 24 different games topped the UK charts in 2013, including one-week wonders like Ni no Kuni, Resident Evil: Revelations, Aliens: Colonial Marines, and Payday 2.fifa15guide.com The Last of Us spent the most time at the UK's peak, earning six successive weeks as the numero uno in the summer. Pats on the back to FIFA 14 and Call of Duty: Ghosts for each racking five weeks in total, and to four-in-a-row hit Saints Row 4. Talking of successive No. 1s, six games kept top spot for three weeks running or more: BioShock Infinite, Dead Island: Riptide, The Last of Us, Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, Saints Row 4, and Call of Duty: Ghosts. While Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition did eventually rack up a run at No. 1, it took a good long while to get there. 4J Studios' port spent four weeks in The Last of Us' shadow, before finally taking over the No. 1 spot in its fifth week at retail. Grand Theft Auto 5 became the UK's fastest-selling game ever when it launched in September, running off with a staggering 2.25 million sales or so in its first week. No surprises that FIFA 13 stayed in the top ten the longest: It dropped out just before FIFA 14 arrived, making it 37 successive weeks in the top ten across 2013, and 51 in total since its release in September 2012. Special mentions go to Tomb Raider, which departed the top ten after an impressive 25 weeks, and to Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, which was only pushed out on the week the Xbox One launched, some 22 weeks after release. Some things will never change: Between them, the Call of Duty and FIFA series led the UK charts for a quarter of 2013, including 8 weeks at the end of the year. Keep on shooting and kicking stuff, UK! fifaservice.net Top 10 UK Software Sales (All Formats); week ending December 28 FIFA 14 Call of Duty: Ghosts Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag Battlefield 4 Grand Theft Auto 5 Need for Speed: Rivals Lego Marvel Super Heroes Just Dance 2014 Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition Gran Turismo 6

2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil review: Qualifier | fifaservice

The FIFA World Cup is one of the grandest, most cherished sporting events in the world. The quadrennial competition pits teams of the best soccer players on the planet against one another, each representing dozens of nations (hundreds in the qualifying stages). To do the competition justice, a video game would need to elicit how special the World Cup is, especially to nations that hold the sport closer to their hearts (I'm looking at you, everyone but the United States). Purely by virtue of existing as a stand-alone product, you'd think 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil would drive home the event's importance as its own entity outside of soccer. However, EA Sports seemingly spent more time trying to convince us that 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil is worthy of being its own $60 retail game than delivering enough to separate it from the main series in a truly meaningful way. 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil's striking visual style immediately denotes how it differs from FIFA 14. It carries the same menu and layout format as last year's primary FIFA game, but its clean lines and white backdrops are replaced with colorful paint splatters and strokes to give every element of the game an uneven, worldly feel. That vibe carries through the game's pinpoint commentary as well as the frequent cuts to your team's manager and fans during games. Likewise, though EA Sports opted for Xbox 360 and PS3 instead of their next-gen counterparts, the stadiums hosting the World Cup this year are shown in fantastic detail. From a purely visual standpoint, the game celebrates the World Cup in a magnificent manner. gameusd.net If only World Cup Brazil's merits rested on its graphics. On the field, it's nearly identical to the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of FIFA 14, save for a few differences. While the last-gen versions of FIFA 14 felt somewhat slow, and passes seemed a bit vulnerable (read our review here), World Cup Brazil seems faster by comparison. In a way, the juiced-up athletes feel a touch smarter and more capable overall than in FIFA 14, and they probably should, given that World Cup Brazil comprises international squads only. Still, it's a small change that, even in addition to tweaked penalty kicks and new over-the-back header animation, doesn't feel substantially different than FIFA 14. This isn't to say that World Cup Brazil is unsatisfactory – just like FIFA 14, it doesn't have many honest flaws in the actual flow of the game. fifaservice.net

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